


you were everything

by lushology



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: M/M, jj is soft for pope, pope as a writer, they are in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:54:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26635453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lushology/pseuds/lushology
Summary: you were everything, to me.
Relationships: JJ/Pope (Outer Banks)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	you were everything

It’s raining. We are sitting together on the boat as we wait for the weather to drift away. We are passing a fork back and forth, sharing preserved peaches, a rare treat.

I stare out into the open water, you stare up at the sky.

It is dusty and I am holding in a cough. I don’t want to disturb the drenched earth, or you, beside me. There’s dirt in the grooves of my fingertips and while you hold the can, I try and scrub them clean against my jacket.

The rain washes away the grime. In the morning, we will all start new.

There is a notebook pressed under your thigh. 

You pass me the peaches. I eat two slices. Everything is simple. 

I fall a little in love with you everyday, with the little things. Your laugh, the way you shake your head when you’re tired, how you slump against me to sleep, how you always share any food you have with me, even if it’s only a little, how you write in your notebook and make sure I’m okay.

I often dream of a quiet place where I can tell you what I feel. I often dream of running my hand through your hair and listening to your every word, to every sound you make, to listen to your heart beat, Oh, I forget how hard it is to be in love. You are the reason for my suffering and I want to suffer. 

(I fall in love with you but you do not love me. That’s the truth of life, we fall in love with someone and they become home. They are home in a way that no one has ever been your home before. You cannot tell them how you feel because you finally have a friend, you are finally not alone. And having someone halfway is better than having nothing.)

I have never wanted to kiss anyone more than I want to kiss you. 

Everything sits silent. Then you say: Can I read you something.

I nod. You clear your throat and open your notebook, turning to the page marked with a bright orange stripe of paper.

* * *

_Sometimes Death leaves a kiss on your cheek, feather soft, with the sprinkle of all the things you’ll never know, (it stays wet on your face, on your freckles). She holds you close like no one else, keeps you between her hands, slender and bony, crackling like the wind, and her heart, solid black, shining in the night. She is stealing your life away and you are letting her because you long for a home and she is giving it to you._

_Death kisses every boy, every woman of war, skin made of nightmares, bones built from sleepless nights and silent screams. I sit next to you in the trenches, through the smoke just for you to leave me for her, for a home that isn’t real. She is not what she says she is but you do not listen to me and you slip through my fingers, too wet with blood to catch you._

_You were a boy when she first laid her dead eyes on your sweet face, when she first hugged you and a boy when she took you._

_I imagine up your death in every way, the snap of your neck, a bullet in your heart as she watches the blood pour out of you._

_I can’t give you the home she’s convinced you that she has, I cannot compete. Not with her, not with you. But, in the end, it will be me, not her, never her, watching you choke down your last breaths as the world spins above endlessly and the sky blurs and rain falls. When you are gone, she will blame me for all this, for your bloodstained, torn open body, skin dyed red. It will be my fault that you died like this, that I did not stop you from falling, falling, falling. She will take me too, but she is not asking, not warmly extending her hand. She is dragging me by the ankles into the fiery ends of Hell, where you will not be, but I will forever alone without you, (she will be there, arms tugging on mine, but every eternity where we are not together is empty, deserted of all love. Men like us are not awarded happy endings._

_Your brown eyes, once golden, go dark, black like the sky, like the colour of her hair, the paint on her nails. A storm lives inside your soul, crashing lightning and deafening explodes that shake your core. There isn’t an end to the war you have with her, not one I can help with, that can go away with a snap of fingers, the flick of a wand._

_Paradise only exists in our minds. Tall pink and orange skies stretching towards the Heavens, stars kissing our faces, cotton candy clouds. Pieces of the moon in the streetlamps I kiss you under late at night. Eyes no longer bloodshot, bodies no longer heavy with exhaustion. I do not get in trouble for holding your hand._

_We could have had that, there was a chance before your wrapped your fingers around hers, accepted your offer. (We are both paying for it.) We didn’t have to be alone. My tears are turned into the wine she drinks with dinner. (So I do not cry anymore, leaving her thirsty.) We aren’t who we once were, no longer boys, instead, messes of things we didn’t choose. Her throne is made of your blood and words. It’s all a game, a game we are playing with her, but she is changing the rules all the time._

_You were everything. You were hot showers and blueberry pies and Sunday morning and Wednesday afternoon and Friday night.. You were fresh bed sheets and apple soap. You were summer picnics and autumn dinners. The sun and the moon belonged to you and so did I. You were the everything that filled my soul._

_Now, you are nothing but the shell of a man because of her._

_Careful, we are not in Wonderland. We are in a nightmare dressed up in lipstick and sunshine. We are seizing vines to pull ourselves free._

_She has tricked you, darling. Don’t worry, I don’t blame you. (This is partly my fault.) I love you the way the stars love the sky, clinging to the universe the way the tears cling to your eyelashes. I cannot let go._

_I am trying, trying, trying for us._

* * *

It is all silent when you are done. You wrote about me, I think. I’ll never know how much you truly write about me, mostly because I’m scared to find another thing like this.

You close your notebook and adjust yourself the way you always do when you’re getting tired. I reach out and grab your hand, warm and comforting. 

Your eyes are blue. I will always remember this. The colour of salty waves hitting cliffs and crashing off rocks. The sky lives in your body, I see it only through your eyes. Soft heart and ocean eyes.

We were doomed from the start. Boys are not meant to love, not in war when the sky is breaking, not in everyday, when the garden blooms and stars explode into the night. Nothing was ever right for us, the cobblestones of the path crumble and the trees grow in to block the sunlight. 

I kiss you. It tastes like peaches and summer air.

**Author's Note:**

> check out my tumblr, midsommers, for more content!


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